1/21-23/16: Doing the Charleston

Last week, I had business in Charleston, SC, which saw me doing some more of my cowardly, indoor yoga there. Well, this week I went back, on the same business, in the same hotel, and just as unpublic and unexciting as before.

What was different this time? Nothing, except that it was remarkably colder (low-thirties with some snow flurries when I left, compared to a summery sunny and mid-seventies last time). Oh, and this latest visit's picture was taken from the outside (because that makes it interesting, right?).

Okay, so this post is as flat and sucky as those of the last couple months. Well, I'll once again try to compensate with a quasi-interesting picture I took this morning before departing the Charleston area. Yes, that's a pair of sneakers set conspicuously in an empty parking space, just visible in the middle -- a scene which struck me as oddly sad, and a little poignant in its own way (imagine them there on the cold, snowy, Poe-like morning mentioned above). How'd they get there, and what was the leaver's intent (assuming they weren't simply forgotten or misplaced)? Alas, I shall never know (unless their owner responds to this blog post, I guess).

1/14-16/16: More Hotel-Room Yoga

Yep, stop the presses, folks: I yoga'd in a hotel room for a few more days.

It was a repeat of my Christmas-travel sessions: a brief excursion that required a hotel stay, breaking up a couple weeks of hermit-yoga at the beach trailer. And it was, also, as outwardly dull as before, being almost totally unnotable but for its technical "wandering" on my part. Really, this outing was about identical to the last, except I went south instead of north, and there was no Christmas waiting for me at the end.

This time, however, I'll make an admission: I had no excuse to yoga inside. Those three days, it was beautiful and sunny. It was unseasonably warm. The hotel had a perfectly yoga-friendly lawn, and there were no ghouls or gunfights or booby traps in evidence. I simply gave in to the reclusiveness inspired by my less-than-perfect health and, thus, stayed inside, denying the world my yoga (you guys are just heartbroken, I'm sure). Trifling as it all is, I can't help but feel I've failed at something, if only to overcome my present tendency to absent myself from the outside world.

Ah, well. Have a pretty picture I snapped the other day, then. I know it's no substitute for seeing my glorious yoga, but it'll have to do.

12/28-31/15: Hotel Yoga

No, it's not some trendy yoga-themed resort in California. Rather, I just yoga'd in a couple more hotels.

Not much to be said about these sessions (even less so than others). I was on the road again, and, again, en route between the Carolinas, on a post-Christmas escapade. My first stop was in a Holiday Inn, in which I once more forgot to take a picture; the second, a little strip-style brick motel (room pictured above, because I somehow remembered to snap it). An elderly, low-cost non-franchise that I felt Compelled to stop into, the latter one could've been described as either a 50's-style relic or a Bates-style dive, depending on your attitude and perspective. In any case, I was not attacked while showering there (nor at the Holiday Inn of the previous stopover, as it were).

[Insert interesting anecdote here.]

12/25-27/15: Have Some Gym Yoga, You Nice Yogi (or So Says Santa)

Three consecutive days of gym-yoga, as a Christmas gift of sorts (because I've learned to regard every yoga session as a gift, rather than erroneously taking it for granted ...).

Behold, the beauty of those 24-7 gyms that are all the rage nowadays: not only do you get nationwide locations and private showers and all kinds of other conveniences (and at reasonable rates, no less), but your futuristic keychain key gets you in on even the most widely recognized of holidays. So, once the family side of things was finished, I both yoga'd and worked out on Christmas Day (and the two days thereafter -- or, as retail outlets seem to treat them, The Days Immediately After Christmas). I felt something like a superhero.

The attached picture? A deliberately crappy snapshot of one of the gym locations in question, taken from inside the cab of a parked and sunbathed car, in a (failed) attempt at originality. If I'm a superhero, conspicuous mediocrity is one of my powers, I suppose.

12/24/15: Sleeping Inn (aka, "Intentionally Bad Pun Yoga")

I recently stayed at a particular Sleep Inn in western NC. Heading back through there on Christmas Eve, I stayed there again.

So, after a good night's sleep (and a good morning of sleeping INN, nyuck nyuck nyuck), I yoga'd there. The yoga, too, was good, both because I'd not done any the day previous due to travel mishaps, and because my yoga of the 23rd had been constrained to those asanas which can be performed within the tiny space of a conversion van. Though, the van-yoga was, oddly, a little more satisfying than the comparatively royal setting of this session. Maybe because of the van's "guerrilla" element. Maybe just because I was a bit groggy from sleeping INN so late ... (no more puns, I promise).

And, for those who long to know: no Santa sightings. (Does Santa do yoga? The big belly might make it hard, but the baggy suit would be pretty yoga-friendly.)

12/22/15: Into the Fire

As in, "Out of the frying pan and into the fire."

Well, okay, maybe I was just moving into the frying pan, if we're going on degrees here. Anyway, the 22nd marked a departure from all recent yoga, with it being performed on the chair-stripped floor of my new conversion van. The van was supposed to be my RV replacement, and though I was only driving it at the time, as a car, not planning on staying in it yet ... fate had other plans. That is, it broke down during its maiden voyage, in northern SC, and rather than shell out for a hotel, I decided to just stop putting off the inevitable and "camp" in the van (in a Food Lion parking lot, as it were, the town's closest surrogate to a Wal-Mart).

Thus, that day's yoga was performed in the frying-pan-rough of a broken-down conversion van, as opposed to the cushy, marsh-side session of just the day before.

The kicker? It was the best yoga I've had in a while. I don't know if it was just the inordinate stress accumulated from the day's van troubles (and, subsequently, that stress's relief), or what. But, doing yoga in that noisy parking lot, on that cold, rainy night just sixty-some hours from Christmas day, I felt pretty darn good.

Afterward, upon retiring to the van's fold-down bed, I was smiling.